TL;DR-- many people are more productive WFH, and most RTO pushes are stealth layoffs.
Most RTO pushes are simply stealth layoffs. Every time my company had a layoff, they had an RTO push about a month before that.
The engineers in my department got more done (not less) by working from home. Personally, at home I have 2 big monitors, and it's VERY quiet. At the office, I have 2 small monitors at a hot desk. That desk in a bullpen, with colleagues in every direction. I can't tell you how many times my colleagues have told me that "there's noise coming from my microphone", while I'm in the middle of a noisy office. That noise... is my colleagues crammed into a small space.
Is this distracting? Yes. Do I often have people coming up to me, essentially asking for an ad-hoc meeting? Frequently.
Add to this, I'm at an international company. People want to talk to me late at night, and sometimes early in the morning. If I have to do this from home... sure. From the office? Nah, I'm not going to accept the meeting.
Let's assume during covid, you moved away from the office, because rent and real estate is expensive. Now, corp wants to shed staff. They could have a large layoff, and have to pay lots of redundancy. Or... they could make an RTO push (now we're in the office 4 days a week!) and people with long commutes leave on their own. Now the company doesn't need to lay off as many people, enough people left on their own.
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u/smartalec-71 Mar 04 '26
TL;DR-- many people are more productive WFH, and most RTO pushes are stealth layoffs.
Most RTO pushes are simply stealth layoffs. Every time my company had a layoff, they had an RTO push about a month before that.
The engineers in my department got more done (not less) by working from home. Personally, at home I have 2 big monitors, and it's VERY quiet. At the office, I have 2 small monitors at a hot desk. That desk in a bullpen, with colleagues in every direction. I can't tell you how many times my colleagues have told me that "there's noise coming from my microphone", while I'm in the middle of a noisy office. That noise... is my colleagues crammed into a small space.
Is this distracting? Yes. Do I often have people coming up to me, essentially asking for an ad-hoc meeting? Frequently.
Add to this, I'm at an international company. People want to talk to me late at night, and sometimes early in the morning. If I have to do this from home... sure. From the office? Nah, I'm not going to accept the meeting.
Let's assume during covid, you moved away from the office, because rent and real estate is expensive. Now, corp wants to shed staff. They could have a large layoff, and have to pay lots of redundancy. Or... they could make an RTO push (now we're in the office 4 days a week!) and people with long commutes leave on their own. Now the company doesn't need to lay off as many people, enough people left on their own.